


Upon This Grave The Sun Did Set

by TexasDreamer01



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bilbo Remains In Erebor, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bagginshield Summer Surprise Event, F/M, Implied Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, M/M, POV Thorin, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 19:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11996499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TexasDreamer01/pseuds/TexasDreamer01
Summary: Winter had left, taking its trailing gown of snow along with it. Revealed beneath it was Summer's, made of innumerable blooming plants. Hidden were the pock marks, the blood, the graves - but not their memories. Not their fears.





	Upon This Grave The Sun Did Set

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://texasdreamer01.tumblr.com/post/164907382115/upon-this-grave-the-sun-did-set).

“How did you manage to catch a cold in the midst of summer?”

Bilbo’s voice was incredulous, and rightly so. He grumbled out an agreement with the sentiment around muffled sniffles into his handkerchief. Ereborian summers tended to be crisper than Shire ones - at least when confined to the public terraces on the upper levels - but with the dwarven fashion of layers, genuine illness escaped them.

At least, if a dwarf didn’t forget their coat when traversing up the steep slopes of Erebor’s craggy tail. Thorin had wanted to explain, but in truth Kíli’s distressed countenance bade him to keep silent. Bilbo was certainly empathetic, though it was more that his hobbitish decisiveness didn’t offer  _quite_  the sympathetic ear that Thorin’s distressed nephew looked for. Nodding his thanks to Bilbo as he accepted the steaming, fragrant tea, Thorin musing over the events which precipitated his cold.

It wasn’t unusual for him to chat with either of his nephews, the brisk air of the outdoors a useful contrast for their troubles. Often, the best accompaniment to one’s thoughts was a silent balm absorbed in their own thoughts, existing in the magnificence Yavanna had sown so many Ages ago still flourishing under mortal ( _enough_ , he thought, the stark scene of elvish bodies lain upon freezing autumn ground among dwarf and tenebrous enemy twinging still a ragged scar upon his memories), if not always tender, care. Thorin sighed, accepting the tea set on the armchair table.

Overseeing the flower-blanketed valley with its innumerable flecks of colour hadn't soothed Kíli’s fraught restlessness, something he could agree with. The polished green stone wasn’t soothing, not for the countenance his youngest nephew wore. And so they had descended the mountain - albeit from a less taxing back door near the adjacent mining hills, newly unlocked - for a more invigorating setting to converse in. It had been spontaneous, prompted by naught more than a wish for some tincture to leach the tense curve fear-soaked memories adjudicated.

He supposed it hadn’t occurred to them, meandering through various levels of Erebor by way of hundreds of stairs in lieu of the escalators not yet in working order and basking in the walls warmed by the pipes recently resurrected from their dusty slumber. The song of the mountain joined by dwarves whose works outlived them drew their minds into a comforted lull, gait falling into a rhythm complementing it, peace falling upon them if only for the short trek.

Looking upon Bilbo, with his freshly-tanned Warg fur resting about his shoulders as he pored over an aged text, Thorin felt a rueful smile ruching worn laughter lines. The crisp air greeting them at the other door wicked away the calm, bringing Kíli’s worry once more to the fore. It had been a hard lesson, learning the mutable shades of peace, and which were worth laying axe upon flesh for - the battle had proven that, etching its lesson on his youngest nephew’s brow. He remembered sighing, ignoring the prickles of ice filling his lungs in favour of offering what little wisdom he himself had earned.

It was different. Elves and hobbits, his lover and Kíli’s; they may have been cut of the same cloth, but their lives were of drastically different moulds. They were fighters, both of them, but the wounds of a bleeding heart were only superficially similar. Bilbo, blessed as he may be in wit and faith, yet trembled at the nebulous transient phase of home and war. He did well in one, or the other, but had never traversed the boundary before meeting them. And, Thorin thought, had never dared, for reasons still undivulged.

The steaming brew of wild herbs coaxed his attention back, and he set those worries aside for another day. Bilbo cast a questioning glance in his direction - he smiled, watching it morph the subtle concern into a smile reflecting his own.

Tauriel. That fiery blaze of autumn, whom he later learned had equipped herself to defend the plight of any that caught her heart with words sharp as her knives. His nephew had regaled him with tale after tale, that thin tendril of worry threaded through each story, sidled alongside the awe her presence engendered. He had listened, to the words and the emotions behind them, approaching it as the battle it seemed with a strategist’s eye.

Hours had passed, it seemed, the sun slipping behind the western mountains as the conversation waxed and waned. Only when the stars twinkled above them did Thorin place a chilled hand on the young man’s shoulder, letting the tumult finally bleed out from his tense frame. “Kíli,” he had said, “We were none of us made with false hearts, nor that their pair be anything other than the completing of joints made for our kin.

"We are mortal,” He told his nephew, watching the starlight paint a silvered sheen on his face, “And our time before journeying to Mahal’s halls is a gift. Waste it not, and revel in your joy.”

Thorin peered, now, at the cooling mug in his warmed hands. It was empty, but the careful twitch of ear assured him it would not remain so for long. The ruefulness dwindled, and he answered the faded, bemused question at last.

“Teaching, âzyungâl. Erebor provides good lessons.”


End file.
